Comment: I am writing seeking the answer to a rumor that rolls through the
student body at the school where I work ever so often and is darned
persistent. The kid spreading the rumor usually swears an older brother
or sister at college has a friend or saw someone at a party die
"instantly" or go into convulsions and later die at the hospital because
alcohol was being served in Styrofoam cups. While I have tried to point
out logically that this is highly unlikely, the chemistry doesn't make
sense, or that it was probably the last in a much-too-long line of
alcoholic drinks rather than the mix of Styrofoam and alcohol that caused
the poisoning/death, I am an English (not a Chemistry or Health) teacher
and the rumor rolls back through regularly. Obviously, this isn't a rumor
I'm interested in testing to failure.

Surely, some expert out there has done the research or knows enough
chemistry to definitively put this particular dead horse down!

Does putting drinking alcohol from a Styrofoam cup result in death by
poison?

I know to not put two-stroke gasoline in a styrofoam cup**. But alcohol?

Come to think of it, I haven't seen a styrofoam cup in a long, long time. They all seem to be paper.

**Two-stroke dissolves the styrofoam leaving you with a puddle of diesel and melted styrofoam to clean. I found out as the result of trying to prime an engine that had stalled and needed something to move a small amount of fuel. Did not work very well.

Coffee and tea are both something like 98% water and Styrofoam was designed to hold water.

Alcohol is, well depends. Pure alcohol will dissolve some plastics and will leach things out of other plastics. So if you are drinking Everclear (95% ethanol) it might leach a small amount of stuff out of Styrofoam. Most alcoholic drinks though are much lower in alcohol and the combination of water and alcohol is much less likely to leach things out of plastics.

I would put the possibility of leaching (or dissolving) an instantly toxic substance out of Styrofoam with drinking alcohol at 0%.

I would put the chance of death of a person drinking 95% alcohol from any container at substantially greater the 0% and all of the risk is directly related to the health affects of alcohol.

I know to not put two-stroke gasoline in a styrofoam cup**. But alcohol?

Come to think of it, I haven't seen a styrofoam cup in a long, long time. They all seem to be paper.

**Two-stroke dissolves the styrofoam leaving you with a puddle of diesel and melted styrofoam to clean. I found out as the result of trying to prime an engine that had stalled and needed something to move a small amount of fuel. Did not work very well.

Gasoline dissolves styrofoam, yes. The addition of 2-stroke oil has little to do with it, though, I believe. I guess it probably happened to you using pre-mixed gas.

Kerosene (paraffin? ) is also a good cleaner and with a higher flash point, probably a bit safer.

It (kerosene) works fine, but it takes a rather long time for the smell to go away. I filled up a kerosene lantern recently (NOT white gas) and my hands smelled of kerosene well after washing my hands twice, and even taking a shower.

My cleaner of choice is usually denatured alcohol, followed by acetone, xylol, kerosene, etc. Acetone can be tough on plastics too, though.